Acclaimed pianist returns to help launch GSO 2012-13 season

Christina Hennessy

Published 1:33 pm, Friday, October 12, 2012

Pianist Angela Cheng will perform with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 13, and 4 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012, to kick off its 2012-13 season. The program will include Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, which features Chen, as well as Mozart's Symphony No. 36
"Linz" and French composer Maurice Ravel's "Mother Goose." Tickets are $30 for adults and $10 for students. For more information, visit www.greenwichsym.org or call 203-869-2664.
Photo: Contributed Photo

Angela Cheng is used to taking her place alongside the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra. This accomplished pianist has performed with the organization several times in the past and will return to help launch its 2012-13 season.

"It's wonderful to be invited back," Cheng said.

It is the first time she will perform Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the orchestra, but she is well-versed in the piece, having performed it many times. It is one of five piano concerti Beethoven wrote during his career, which spanned the classical and Romantic periods.

"It encompasses a lot of different emotions, and, as a performer, it is very satisfying to have that," Cheng said.

"The first movement has lots of energy," she added. "The second movement is just glorious ... so expressive and expansive. It can really put the listener and the performer in a trance.

"The third movement is full of life, full of spirit, full of joy," Cheng said.

One may hear such emotions firsthand at the two opening concerts of the orchestra, taking place Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 13 and 14, at Greenwich High School auditorium.

In addition to the Beethoven piece, the orchestra, under the direction of conductor David Gilbert, will perform Mozart's Symphony No. 36 "Linz." Only days in the making (the composer took four days to complete it), it debuted at a concert in Linz, Austria, in 1783.

French composer Maurice Ravel's "Mother Goose" also is on the program. It began as a piano piece, written as a gift for the children of Ravel's friends, but later became an orchestral piece and then a ballet, "Ma Mere L'Oye," in 1911.

Cheng's stop in Greenwich is one of many she will make this year in venues throughout her native Canada and the United States. She has worked with nearly every orchestra in Canada and many in the United States.

"I'm on the road a lot," she said. "I usually do 60 to 70 concerts a year."

Cheng said she enjoys orchestral or chamber settings, as it is a good balance to practice time, which is typically a solitary pursuit.

"You get to bounce ideas off each other," she said. "And I love to learn and grow."

When she is not on the road and performing, she is an associate professor of piano at Oberlin Conservatory in Oberlin, Ohio. She also performs with her husband, Alvin Chow, who is the chair of Oberlin's piano department and an associate piano professor.

"I can't imagine one without the other," she said of her teaching and performing. "Teaching helps my playing and I think my performance helps my teaching."

The couple also are busy raising two teen daughters

"I just need more hours in the day," she said, laughing.

Cheng has been playing piano since she was a little girl in China. She continued to develop her talent after her family moved to Canada in the early 1970s and eventually made her way to New York City's Juilliard School. She earned her bachelor's degree in music from the school in 1982 and added a master's from Indiana University in 1984.

Only two years later, she received the gold medal in the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, beginning a string of accomplishments including first prizes in several international competitions.

Performing all these many years later continues to be a singular experience for Cheng. It is a joy she shares with her students, along with life lessons about balancing practice, performance and personal time.

"It's the music," she said. "There is so much depth to it. Even though I have played this first concerto many times, every time I come into it, I say, `Wow, I didn't see that the last time.' "

She said she considers her career one long road.

"For me, I am never finished," she said. "I'm one of the lucky ones. I get to do what I really truly love to do."